Interview with Simon Dempsey (entrevista en inglés)

Interview with Simon Dempsey (entrevista en inglés a Simon Dempsey)

 

Simon Dempsey is an English professional juggler from Manchester, England, that has lived in Spain for around 30 years. He’s now an English teacher and joggles.

 

When did you come to Spain for the first time?

I first came to Spain in 1973 with my family to live here up in to the age of eleven, then I went back to live in England until the age of twenty, and then I basically lived in Spain since then. So I’ve lived here for approximately thirty years now.

Do you prefer England or Spain to live in?

I prefer Spain, because there’s a lot more open space, people live their lives on the street a lot more than they do in England, because I fell in love here…

What do you do as a job now?

Right now, my job is teaching English conversation.

I’ve worked as a professional juggler for approximately 15 years.

So you started juggling at the age of…

Twenty, twenty-one.

And why did you start juggling as a job?

Because I learnt to juggle and when travelling around Europe it was a way of earning money as I went.

Has it become a hobby now or do you still juggle as a job?

Yeah, I’m still sometimes contracted to do work in medieval fairs, doing walk-abouts and fire shows.

I also do what I’ve called malabarafooting in Spanish (joggling in English), which is combining juggling and long distance running. The longest distance I’ve run and juggled is 54 km. I took part in the ultra-marathon in Cataluña three years ago, which is 100 km.

Are you going to continue joggling?

I now don’t train as seriously as I did before; I don’t have any upcoming races. But I might do it again.

Do you have any joggling events in mind at some point?

No, not really. Nothing specific, at least.

Do you have a favourite race?

Well, I really like the race that goes from Nájera to Santo Domingo, which is a half marathon. I’ve done that several times and it’s a lot of fun.